R A C E R S M A N U A L

R A C E R S M A N U A L

INSTALLATION... 3 WINDOWS... 3 Starting the installation... 3 Basic setup... 3 Uninstalling the game... 3 THE GAME... 4 CHARACTERS... 5 HELIX... 5 ARION... 5 TRISH... 5 RADIX... 5 SCARGOT... 5 TITLE SCREEN... 6 STARTING THE GAME... 6 CHOOSING YOUR RACER... 7 SELECTING THE GAME MODE... 8 TIME TRIAL... 9 SINGLE RACE... 10 CHAMPIONSHIP... 11 SELECTING A TRACK... 12 OPTIONS... 13 VIDEO SETUP... 14 AUDIO SETUP... 15 SETUP CONTROLS... 16 PAUSING THE RACE... 17 POWER-UPS... 17 PROBLEMS RESOLUTION... 18 WINDOWS... 18 SUPPORT... 18 LICENSE... 19 LIMITAÇÕES DO USO DO SOFTWARE E LICENÇA LIMITADA... 19 INFORMAÇÃO DE COPYRIGHT... 19 2

Installation Windows Starting the installation To start the Snail Racers game installation on your computer, just locate the file SnailRacers-Setup.exe (on the game CD or where you downloaded the file) and double click it. When the installation program begins, just follow the step-by-step shown on screen (usually you just need to click on the next button until the end) and the game will be ready to be played on your computer. After the installation, you ll have a menu shortcut (Start All programs on Windows XP) to the game on Icon Games Snail Racers. To start the game, just select this entry in the programs menu. Basic setup To run the game it necessary at least an computer with an 800Mhz processor, 256 megabytes of RAM and graphics cards with Direct-X 7 support, with at least 64mb of memory and properly configured. The game uses around 70Mb of hard disk space after installed. To get a better performance in the game, is highly recommended a graphics card compatible with Direct-X 9 and the installation of Xinput drivers. Uninstalling the game Together with the Snail Racers game, an automatic uninstaller is included. This uninstaller is in the same menu entry, and once activated, will remove the game from your computer. 3

The Game it! Attention snails of the world: a big race is going to happen and you cannot miss Several championships, on 12 different tracks, will prove once and for all who is the fastest snail in the world! But to win the trophy, speed is only one of the features you must have. Agility on curves, dexteriry to avoid dangers on the roads and above all, the correct use of objects you find along the way! Be extra careful, because this race have no rules, and the use of explosive mines, missiles and other unusual methods are common when trying to stop the opponents progress... 4

Characters The characters in the game are the 5 snail racers: Helix Helix is the racers with fastest acceleration. If you need an quick start, this is your snail. Arion Opposite to Helix, Arion has great skills, being excellent to make difficult turns in the tracks. Trish Trish manages to join Helix s acceleration and Arion precision on curves. A great snail that will never leave you hanging! Radix Even without a great acceleration, Radix compensates for this flaw with a greater final speed, and a good skill to make turns. Scargot This frech snail is the track terror. With maximum speed and greater turning skills, he only looses when it comes to final speed! In the game, some of those characters are locked at start. To unlock them you have to find the tickets with their colours (shown below), which are hidden on some tracks. 5

Title Screen Starting the Game Every time you start Snail Racers, the screen below will be shown: Initial screen In the screen above you can see 4 options, that can be identified when you hover the mouse pointer over them (they change their colour): 1 Player Game, 2 Player Game, Options e Exit Game. If you re playing by yourself, click over the 1 Player Game option. If you choose to play the game with a friend, click on 2 Player Game. When you click one of those options, it will take you to the player selection screen. To change game configurations (language, video settings, sound volume or control schemes), click over the Options iten. To leave the game and go back to your Windows desktop, click on the Exit Game option. 6

Choosing your Racer After clicking on 1 Player Game or 2 Player Game, you will be taken to another screen where you can select what snail you will race with. 2 Player selection screen On this screen, you can change the player by clickin on the arrows << and >>, which repectively changes to the previous and next snails shown on the screen. At the side of each snail (to the right of player 1 and to the left of player 2) you can see in yellow the snail name, and just below, your qualities: Speed, Accel (acceleration) and Skill. Each one of those qualities defines the way each snail behaves on the tracks: speed sets the top speed a snail can race; acceleration defines how fast it can get to that speed, and skill shows the difficulty level to make turns more easily. To go back to the first screen, click on back, to continue and start the race, click on ok. 7

Selecting the game mode After choosing your snail, the screen below will be shown: Select game mode screen To select the game mode, just click over it s name. On the next pages, you ll see the description of each of those modes. 8

Time trial Neste modo, o jogador corre contra si mesmo, tentando quebrar seus próprios recordes em cada pista. A cada volta completa, aparece um corredor fantasma que mostra o caminho feito pela melhor volta dada pelo jogador. Time Trial screen On the top of the screen, you can see the current lap, and the lap total. Just below, is the time taken for the player on each lap, and to it s right, the best time already made on that track on a single lap. Below this indicator, the game displays the total time spent on all laps, and the best time already achieved by the player in this circuit. This mode has initially all tracks locked. To unlock a track, run the same track on Single Race mode with only one player and find all coins hidden on it. 9

Single Race The single race mode consists of one race on a single track. All tracks are unlocked on this racing mode. Single Race screen, on 2 player mode You can notice on the top left corner of the screen, the player position on the race. Just below, the lap indicator shows the current lap and how many laps must be made on the track. And below it, on 1 player mode, the number of coins found by the player and the number of existing coins hidden on the track. On the top right corner, a mini-map of the track is displayed (players appears represented by small circles with their respective colours), and to the side a small square with the power each player can use at the moment (on this screen, it s empty, which means, the player has no power) It s possible to compete without powers. To do this, in the track selection screen, un-select the small box labeled Power ups. For further informations about the game power ups, look at the Power Ups section. 10

Championship The championship is defined by a series of races, on 4 different tracks. To the end of each race, the players earns an specific number of points, depending on his position, and at the end of all races, the racer with most points will be the winner. Race over screen By finishing this mode, the player will see an animation where he gets a trophy if he comes at first, second or third place. But in cans the player didn t get any trophy there will be another animation... which will show the player that the important is to compete doesn t apply to snails! The game has 4 championships: Beginner, Advanced, Master and Custom. Only the beginner is unlocked at start. To unlock the other modes you must win the previous championship (Ex: win Beginner to unlock Advanced ). The custom mode enabled the player to create his own championship, choosing 4 tracks out of the 12 available in the game. It s also possible to compete in the championships without powers, by un-checking the box labeled power ups on the championship screen. 11

Selecting a track Select track screen On this screen you can select the track you re going to race. Click on Next >> to show the next track, or << Prev to go to the previous one. Clicking on the small box to the left of the word Power ups, will disable them during the race. Click on Start Race to begin the race, or back to return to the previous screen. 12

Options The options screen allows you to change some game configurations, like language, sounds volume, music volume and if the game runs on fullscreen or windowed mode. Options screen To change the music volume, as the volume of sound effects, click on Audio Volume. To change from fullscreen to windowed mode and vice-versa, or change the graphic resolutions of the game, just click on Video Preferences. To define the player controls (keyboard or joystick and how each of them behaves) click on Player Controls. When clicking on Language, the game will rotate between the supported languages, or into automatic, where the games tries to detect the language used on your computer. 13

Video Setup Video setup screen On the video setup screen you can adjust the game video resolution: click on 800x600 to change the initial resolution. Keep clicking until you find the desired resolution. If the game is running slowly, one of the solutions is to reduce the graphics resolution. The same applies to color depth, which changes the ammount of colors used on screen and to the mode which changes if the game runs in a window or in full screen. After choosing the adequate video options, click on apply to use them in the game, or click on back to cancel the changes. 14

Audio Setup Audio setup screen On this screen is possible to change the volume of sound effects (voices, explosions, etc) and of in game music. To do this, click on the arrows << and >> to increase or decrease the respective volumes. 15

Setup Controls Controller setup screen Snail Racers supports a variety of controllers: from the definition of 2 keyboard sets (keys on the same keyboard, for 2 players), as normal joysticks to Xbox 360 joysticks. When playing with Microsoft s joysticks, they will vibrate, accordingly to what happens in game. On the screen, you can define the type of controller used by each player (keyboard 1, keyboard 2 and joystick in case there is one connected to the computer). After selecting the player controller, click on Setup player... Controller to choose which keys or buttons will be used to speed, brake, turn left, right and to use power ups. Attention: To use Xbox 360 on your PC, it will be necessary to have Direct-X 9.0C installed on your computer, and the Xinput library. Otherwise the game won t recognise the joysticks. Visit Microsoft s website for further informations. 16

Pausing the race Everytime you click on ESC during the game, or in case the game looses it s focus (by pressing ALT+TAB, minimizing the game window, etc) the pause menu will show up. To leave the game and go back to the first screen, press ESC again. To go back to the game, press any key or joystick button. Power-ups Below, the list of power-ups you can get during the races: Turbo: Increases the player speed for a limited ammount of time Missile: Shoots an semi-guided missile Mud: slow downs each player that falls on it Mine: explodes when in contact with another object Shield: protect agains impact or UFOs attacks UFO: attacks the 1st player in the race, freezing it for a while Those powers can be disabled, both in single race or in championship, by just deselecting the labeled box power-ups. If you select the box again, the powers will be reactivated. Hint: try to run without powers, to get a completely different challenge in the same game! 17

Problems resolution Windows There was an installation error, what do I do? Check if your computer has the specifications to run the game. Try to download again the game installer from Icon Games s website. The game is running slowly, what do I do? Check if 3D acceleration is enabled on your graphics card. Check if your computer meets the system requirements. Click on Start, run and type dxdiag.exe. Run every test on the program to see if everything is correct with your Direct-X installation. Update Direct-X to the latest version Update your video drivers Try to run the game on windowed mode, instead of fullscreen. Check if no other program like anti-virus, firewalls, MSN, etc are running on background together with the game. Upgrade your configuration. Note: Usually computers with video and onboard networkd (shared or integrated on the motherboard) do not have enough the power to run 3D games. If this is the case, the minimum requirements my not be enough to run the game properly. Support If you re having problems with Snail Racers and can t solve them with this manual, you can contact us through our website: http://www.icongames.com.br If you can, add the following information listed below together with a detailed description of you problem, to help us to solve the problem. -Name of the game -Operational System (Windows 98, Windows XP, Vista, Linux, Etc.) -Processor type (CPU) and speed -RAM ammount -Sound card -Video and ammount of memory Please don t send any files attached with the email, unless asked for. Messages with non-solicited attachments, without the name of the game, basic details about the computer and the problem won t be answered. Case the game has a serial number, you must also include it on your email, so your message can be processed. 18

License Limitações do uso do software e licença limitada General Product License. This copy of Snail Racers (The "Software") is intended solely for your personal non-commercial home entertainment use. You may not decompile, reverse engineer, or disassemble the software, except as permitted by law. Ikone Soft Programas de Computador ltda retain all rights, title and interest in the software including all intellectual property rights embodied therein and derivatives thereof. The software, including, without limitation, all code, data structures, characters, images, sounds, texts, screens, gameplay, derivative works and all other elements of the software may not be copied, resold, rented, leased distributed (electronically or otherwise), published on magazines, newspapers or any other way, used on a pay-per-play, coin-op or other forcharge basis, or for any commercial purpose without previous authorization by it s creator. Any permissions granted herein are provided on a temporary basis and can be withdrawn by Ikon Software Programas de Computador ltda at any time. All Rights not expressly granted are reserved. Acceptance of License Terms. By acquiring and retaining or installing this software, you assent to the terms and restrictions of this limited license. If you do not accept the terms of this limited license, do not install or use this software. Copyright Information Snail Racers 2008-2012 Ikone Soft Programas de Computador ltda. Created and programmed by José Lucio Mattos da Gama. All other copyrights and trademarks are property of their respective owners. All rights reserved. 19